Rewound Chapter Twelve
This chapter is rated M for a reason.
Kate was... she was... this was today. This was March 2014. This was not May 2012. There was no thunderstorm. No dripping hair. No bruises covered by soaked, clinging clothes.
But she had the same damn smile.
Come-hither and awe all swirled together into I-love-you and this-is-happening, and the only coherent thought he could come up with was yes. No, scratch that. Two coherent thoughts: yes, now.
All day he'd seen flashes, heard inflection, tried so hard not to read into the way her body had canted toward instead of away. But she had told him she loved him. She sat there on his couch and listened to his story of their lies, misunderstanding, and heartbreak, and in the end, she had said the words her old self hadn't been capable of saying back to him for two years.
His Kate was coming back.
And at that moment, she was retracing those same steps from that night so long ago, leading him into their bedroom - theirs. So what if she still had some gaps in her memory? If anything would jog it, it would be this.
Her grip tightened as she turned to tug him through the bedroom door, steps measured, slow, hesitant. Tamping down on the wild fluttering in his belly, he forced his own feet to mimic hers, not to rush, not to crowd.
Their love life had its fair share of hot, steamy, hard-and-fast, up-against-the-wall, thank-God-for-the-sound-proofing nights, and boy, were every one of those memorable. Burned into his brain for all time, really. Especially that one villa in Bora Bora with the hammock and the shots and that teeny, tiny bikini... It would be an awful shame if she never remembered that one...
It did strike him as he surfaced from his little reverie that if he was wrong about how much she remembered, to her, this would be their first time - their first time without the benefit of a year of therapy, the endorphin rush of almost dying, and the level playing field provided by shared newness. The thought nearly made him pause, halt everything and keep talking.
But stepping into their room, all of his doubts, the rest of the world, fell away. The pin-drop silence, the muss of her hair where his hands had fingered through it, the filtered gray late-afternoon light of the bedroom - everything seemed so real, but yet so removed from the nightmare of the past few days. A black and white print shadowed through a negative, it was familiar and smooth and warm after so much harsh, brilliant, digital, hyper-reality.
The scene mirrored all the most powerful moments his brain could conjure, those that spoke to the level of trust and love they had grown to expect - to rely on - in each other's lives, in each other's arms. The images flickered through his mind like a silent film, splashed across the walls of this room - the quiet, peaceful tangles of limbs, dark and soft and lovely, in this bed. With her sighs and catches of breath as soundtrack, the curves and planes of her body his only landscape, he had gained her confidence; chipped away at her need for control; gave, and took, gave some more; learned every tell; taught her his.
Stopping shy of the edge of the bed, she turned, her cast an awkward reminder of all the differences between that past and this present. But her other hand came to his chest, the warmth of her palm soaking through to his ribs, and he pressed his own against it, held it tighter to him, willed her to feel the pounding of his heart underneath.
The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that this was the answer. There was no way her synapses could stay still in the face of this intimacy. His Kate was teetering on the edge, about to tip into consciousness. This act, the same one that had cemented them together two years before, the one that had created the life now growing inside her, would bring whatever was still missing flooding back to her.
His Kate would come back to him.
Taking her face in his hands, he leaned in, brushed his lips over her eyelids, forehead, the tip of her nose, the swell of each cheek, the curve of her chin. Her breath tickled light across his lips, holding, waiting. He felt the change in her the moment she gave in, her body a tightly wound spring finally releasing. And then her mouth was on his, tongue asserting itself between his lips, fingers clutching tight in the soft cotton of his t-shirt, pulling him in.
But before he could wrap himself around her, sweep her up into bed, she was changing tactics, tugging fabric one-handed until he had to help her get the shirt over his head, his jeans unfastened and shimmied down. This was speed, and recklessness, and lust, and when he reached for the buttons of her shirt, he was stopped short by her hand, palming him through his boxers.
Nimble fingers encircled his length, already straining against the silk, slid gently down and up again, almost... assessing. When she slipped beneath his waistband, skin meeting skin for that first, glorious spark of contact, he couldn't help the jerk of his body into her touch. That connection banished all his insecurity along with his restraint.
Finding his focus again, he made fast work of her buttons, slid the shirt gingerly over her cast, and had to stop again because her thumb had begun to paint lazy circles over his flesh, skirting around, and back again, just exactly the way that drove him to distraction. He felt the last of his blood rush south, skin stretching and tightening as his girth filled her hand, and a groan, deep, unfettered, broke the silence of the room.
Everything sped up, the rest of their clothes peeled off in a blur, shed as barriers to that urgent desire for every curving surface to merge. They clung to each other, hands never still, mouths never idle, each trying to climb inside the other's skin. Her lips had attached themselves to his shoulder, teeth and tongue getting involved until he knew he would have a mark. The subtle violence, the willing abandon of that act shot an arc of need, possessive and fierce, straight to his core. He wanted that reminder, wanted her autograph on his skin, a record of this night, clear and unmistakable.
Vertical was not going to be an option much longer - what he wanted to do to her required focusing all his energy on the horizontal. Shuffling them back to the bed, he broke from her embrace to pull down covers, shuffle pillows. Even at their breakneck pace, he knew she would need a place for her arm. He couldn't live with the thought that something they did might hurt her.
Staying pressed against him as he arranged the bed, she hovered, impatient at his side, nibbling at his biceps, tracing the dip of his spine and the flare of his hip with the pad of her unoccupied thumb, until he finally gave up on the pillows and wrapped an arm around her waist, hauling her onto the bed in that way that always made her squeak and yell at him for being a caveman, but which he knew she secretly loved.
"Castle!"
And there was the squeak. Thank God some things never changed.
But he set her down gently, instead of his usual haphazard toss, climbed in with her, tucked them under the covers with her arm well-propped. Even as he fussed over the injury, he watched her, cataloguing her sighs, the shudder on an unsteady exhale, the flutter of lashes as her gaze washed over him in return, desire kindling a rush of blood to her skin. Holding his weight on his hands, he trailed a line of wet kisses over her shoulder, down the bandaged arm, right to the edge of her cast, then moved lower, kissed every knuckle as they peeked out below.
"You have to sign it for me before it comes off."
Her voice was low, a whiskey rasp, warm and mellow, and it melted his heart. With everything else, it hadn't even occurred to him, but of course. He would cover it in love poems if she would let him.
"Want me to do it now?"
He shot her his most devilish grin as he sank into the mattress on her good side, dragged his fingernails feather-light across the flat expanse of her belly. Feeling her abs ripple in response, he caught his pinkie in her belly button, dipped and circled and teased as she smiled down at him, eyes glazing slightly.
"Don't you dare."
Using the tip of his index finger, he wrote on her skin, instead, one word at a time.
BEAUTIFUL
STRONG
BRILLIANT
REMARKABLE
MINE
ALWAYS
They had been too quick for her to catch them, so he thought, but when he had finished the swirl of the last "s" and met her eyes again, he found them suspiciously shiny.
"Always."
His eyes closed as the syllables washed over him, sank into his bones, sent a shiver down his spine. Yes. This was his Kate.
His smile met hers in a desperate, messy kiss, each pushing for an advantage, tongues battling for dominance, lips nearly an afterthought.
Arousal surged through his veins at the string of moans rising from her throat, swallowed by his kiss. When she threaded her fingers into his hair and guided him over her, he tried to slow down, wanting to take his time with this.
But Kate had other ideas.
Never one to argue when his beautiful, naked muse dragged him bodily against her, he complied, settling himself between her parted legs and holding his weight on his elbows. His hands wedged under her, fingers splaying to span her ribs just beneath her shoulder blades, holding her tight, still half afraid she might disappear at any moment, this whole scene a figment of his imagination.
Insistent hips tipped upward into his, and how was he supposed to restrain himself when that little, impatient humming noise that meant really naughty things were about to happen vibrated straight through her mouth and into his? That noise was the Beckett bedroom equivalent of table-flipping in interrogation - one step before the suspect got shoved into the one-way glass.
Getting his wits about him, at least as many as he could gather considering the complete lack of blood flow to his brain, he managed to withdraw his lips, prompting a rise in pitch of that lovely noise. But there was a good reason - her tongue was too distracting when he needed to concentrate on other body parts, and he had to see her face, watch her eyes, gauge her reactions.
Angling himself against her, he slid his length along her folds. Jesus, she was soaking wet. It took all his resolve not to plunge deep and fast, slake the thirst that had been building, flood the desert of want he'd been lost in for days.
But as he often did, he took the opportunity to tease her just a bit longer, draw out the knife's edge of need until neither could stand it. Dragging himself along her clit, letting gravity do all the work, he drew a whimper from her, and then a single, stuttering, breathless word.
"Please."
Those eyes, pupils wide, dark and deep, fixed on his lips where they lingered, inches from hers, close enough to feel that syllable. Dipping in line with her gaze, he aligned himself with her, saw the flare of green as he nudged her entrance, and then he pressed, tender, firm, insistent, until she gave way. That moment, that first tight, wet, clench of her around him, and then the sensation of her body parting, spreading, relaxing to let him in - nirvana. Nothing in the world felt so much like coming home.
Pleasure played out over her features: the part of her lips, the flare of her nose as her breath caught and held, the flicker of lashes down, down, down, and then fighting to open wider than before, to take in everything his face could convey just as she took in all his body offered.
Filling her slowly, keeping all his instincts in check, he felt the tension build in his back, his hips, his abs, every muscle crying out to go faster, harder. But he curbed it all in favor of her. When their hips met, he adjusted his weight, slid his hands down beneath her knees, lifted them up toward her body just the way she loved, so he could give her that last inch.
Her voice cried out his name, harsh and strangled, as he met resistance. Unsure if it was in pain or pleasure, fear jolted through him at the thought that maybe with the pregnancy, he might have hurt her.
"Did I - "
The savage kiss that muffled his question left little doubt as to which it had been. When she finally broke away to breathe, she eased his mind further with her words.
"Just surprised me, that's all."
Strange, since that move had been one she'd -
Her hips rose to meet his, feet planting on the bed again to give her leverage so she could grind up into him with a wicked little twist that stole every thought from his head. Her movements were a little desperate, erratic, out of sync compared with what he liked to think of as their usual effortless rhythm.
Struggling to set an even pace, he gripped her hips with his hands, felt her stiffen when he tried to shift them into better contact. Instead of matching his movements, her legs gripped his hips, and before he knew what was happening, she had him pinned under her, his shoulders now propped on part of her pile of pillows.
His eyes widened in awe. How the hell had she done that one-handed?
Nothing about Kate Beckett getting the best of him in bed should surprise him anymore, but seriously? She had a non-functional limb. Then again, he wasn't going to question the methods of the goddess currently lowering herself into place on his lap. But he did pull a pillow over where her arm could rest.
Eyeing the fluffy puff he had wedged at his hip, she gingerly laid her cast on it before planting her other hand flat against his chest and sinking to take him in one smooth, slick slide that had his eyes rolling back into his head and her name falling from his lips. The sheet pooled at the flare of her hips, leaving her completely exposed. Of all the ways he loved to watch her, this one was his very favorite: Kate, bare and flushed, arousal shimmering off her skin in waves, the whole of her formidable powers of concentration brought to bear on this pursuit of mutual satisfaction.
Letting her set the speed, he concentrated on the curve of her breast as it rose and fell just in his line of sight. He curled up toward her, spanned her tiny waist with his hands, and took one rosy nipple between his lips, used teeth and tongue on her until her timing faltered, and then nosed across to the other. As her hips gyrated, pistoning ever faster and more haphazardly, his mouth followed that gorgeous swell of flesh, tormented it until her voice quaked on a sob and she arched away, severing the connection.
Unfaltering, she leaned forward, hair wildly streaming around her face, forearm shoving him down to the mattress, then braced her good hand over his head on the padded leather headboard and stretched her legs out and around his.
Fuck.
An evil smile quirked at her lips, and he leaned up to greet it with a nip of teeth to the irresistible ambit. Two could play at this game.
Driving up inside her, he reached around her hips, filled his hands with the curve of each cheek, and yanked her down hard against him.
"Fu-Castle!"
He withdrew and then did it again; answering with a remarkably steady, if slightly winded, reply.
"Hmm?"
There wasn't even time to be smug, because she was undulating into him, counter thrusting with a hot, dirty little circle of her hips that stole his breath, and then she threw her head back in a shout.
"God... Yes. Again."
He wasn't about to stop now, not with her whole frame beginning to shake and stiffen, telling him just how close she was better than any words could. And he wasn't far behind.
Her biceps flexed near his temple, drawing his eyes to the bunching, straining muscle as she used it to force herself down harder onto him.
Dead. He was a dead man. She was going to kill him, and he was going to like it.
Everything moved faster; his hips snapping up, hers crushing down, every advance punctuated by the slap of skin meeting naked skin and a staccato grunt from him followed by an answering high-pitched whine from her. Sweat-slicked chests pressed together tightly, that dewy union replacing their kisses, which were long forgotten in favor of supplying the oxygen necessary to maintain this sprint to their cataclysmic finish.
Dipping into his last reserves of strength and restraint, he matched her thrust for thrust, and just as he thought he couldn't last a moment longer, she fluttered around him, let out a sob, and then her muscles squeezed down tight, pulsing and clenching and pulling him into the throes of it with her. The force of his climax shocked him, froze his hips, buried to the hilt inside her, jerking and spilling and holding her tight against him as she rode out her own orgasm.
At the precipice, he tried to find her eyes, to let the world fade to black except for those bursts of green and gold. Watching each other at that moment always anchored them together, reaffirmed that no matter how rough or dark or taboo the act, in the end it was all for this, the connection of bodies toward this communion of souls.
But her lids were shut tight.
Why wouldn't she look at him? Doubt crept in. But wow, they had been wild at the end, surely she was just slow to recover.
Pressing his lips to her ear, he whispered his love there, knowing she would return it. When she didn't, he turned to see her, read her.
But her lips were drawn firmly between her teeth.
Something cracked open inside chest; uncertainty wedged its way deeper, splitting off shards of fear and confusion. She was just overcome - they had gotten carried away, and now she was paying the price with her wrist. It must be the pain shuttering off her emotions.
But as his heart rate began to slow, it gave a stuttering beat.
Still, he shifted his arms to encircle her, draw her into his chest, let her come down tucked safely to his body, until they were steady enough to go for her meds, but instead of melding into that embrace, she pulled her knees under her and sat, straddling his hips for only a moment to catch her balance, eyes firmly on the mattress, before climbing out of bed and disappearing into the bathroom.
Too stunned to question her, he lay staring dumbly after the outline of her creamy skin silhouetted against the sudden flare of light from the fluorescents. That glowing after-image didn't fade even after she noiselessly shut the door, or when his lids shut out the room entirely. That perfect bliss which had filled him just moments before, now lay crumpled and broken inside him, gave way to a sick, heavy dread.
This was wrong.
Despite his best efforts to tell himself it could all be hormones, or her injury, none of that could explain the emptiness hollowing out his chest. There was no other answer that made any sense. Ice seized, stoic and still, around his heart, crystallized in his veins as the realization filtered through.
This was not his Kate.
# * # * # * #
The light from the fire cast flickering shadows across the neat stacks of files, soldiers keeping rank across his heavy wooden desk. Absently trailing his knuckles along the polished cherry, his eyes fell back to the two open manila jackets he had been avoiding for the better part of an hour.
The last swallow of whiskey in the leaded crystal tumbler swirled high with a practiced flick of his wrist. Bringing the cool vessel to his lips, he let the burn of the alcohol coat his mouth, numb it, set it to tingling.
There was no excuse anymore. Any action he took had to be taken soon, or all of this - the planning, the resources, the risk - would have been for naught.
His information was good, his source reliable and close. At least that was something. After the surprises of the past week - her survival, the pregnancy, and miraculously, her memory loss - he couldn't afford further... uncertainty.
Life was uncertain. Politics even more so. This plan was about minimizing that uncertainty.
No presidential campaign could withstand even one whisper of this chapter of his life.
Everyone else was dead. She was supposed to be dead. And yet, here she was, looking so much like the woman for whom this crusade began.
The slightly blurry photo showed a couple walking together, long strides perfectly in step. With her head turned in profile, he could just make out the faint outline of the bruise, the mark of that miraculous erasure of his misdeeds.
Now if only those memories could stay buried, then perhaps he wouldn't be forced to bury her along with the baby she carried, just another unfortunate casualty of her unholy war.
But he wasn't a stupid man. He knew it could all come back in a flash. And even if it never did, she had shared her pathetic little quest for justice with the writer. Their meeting just over a year ago had cemented that theory.
No, it was time to act, and act decisively. He who hesitates is lost. Or more aptly, loses.
Setting his glass down on the blotter with a flourish, he turned to collect the decanter perched behind him and poured a generous two fingers, then stood and crossed to the window overlooking the blinking Midtown skyline.
Raising his drink, with a small, self-satisfied grin, he drank a toast.
"To the end."
# * # * # * #
To all of you who waited so patiently for this chapter, thank you for your words of encouragement. To the readers who left me reviews, followed, or favorited, thank you. I've never had a chapter hit 100 reviews until the last one. To Alex, my beta, thank you for chasing me unfailingly back to this story, and for pointing it in the right direction when it sometimes veers off target.
This story has been fortunate enough to be nominated for the 2013 Castle Fan Awards in the M-rated (10,000 words) category. If you think it worthy of recognition, vote for it, and many other great stories, by signing up for an account on the contest website here:
the12th dot proboards dot com backslash board backslash 32 backslash 12th-fan-awards
Thank you again for your support.
-Kate
Twitter: Kate_Christie_
Tumblr: KathrynChristie dot tumblr dot com
